


Paying the Price

by JanLevine



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanLevine/pseuds/JanLevine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tylendel was left alone after Vanyel disappeared one Sovvan-night ten years ago. What happened to him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paying the Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norabombay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norabombay/gifts).



It was a dark and stormy night. Herald-Mage Tylendel paced the room and cogitated. Sovvan-night always had a special meaning for him, but that shouldn’t be affecting anything outside his own thoughts. The weather had, in fact, felt unnatural for the last several hours. It wasn’t just low pressure that was giving him a headache; there was magic there as well. He checked, and his magic was properly locked down and his shields were all in order. Gala was comfortably asleep and sheltered, so he decided not to disturb her. He opened up a thread of his own magic. _:Savil—does the weather outside feel strange to you?:_

_:In what way?:_ came the reply.

_:I don’t know, exactly. But it feels as if there’s magic in the air. And it_ is _ten years to the day since_ that _night. I’m not sure what’s going on. It feels a little like a gate, but only a little.:_

:Do you want me to leave the Palace and come where you are?: The mental voice paused. _:Mardic and Donni have been trying to shoo me home, saying I need to get more sleep; is this part of their conspiracy?:_

Tylendel laughed, and knew Savil could “hear” him. _:No, dearest. I do think you need to get more sleep, but there is something out there. It doesn’t feel evil, just...unsettled.:_ As if to emphasize his words, another stroke of lightning flashed outside, followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder. _Gods, that’s close! I wonder if taking shelter would be the prudent thing to do. But then, I’ve never been very prudent._

His mind traveled back to that terrible night ten years ago. Truly, he didn’t remember it very clearly anymore. He had planned to wreak a terrible revenge against the Leshara clan, he remembered that. And he had lost Vanyel; that was something he could never forget, though at this remove the feel of the loss was more like what one felt when poking at the of a long-missing tooth than the pain it once had been.

Another mind contacted his. _:Herald-Mage Tylendel?:_ It was his trainee, Ellanee.

_:Havens, Ell! How many times have I told you that you don’t have to be so formal? Especially in Mind-Speech.:_ Ell had grown up far from Haven, near the border, and was still shy of _all_ the Heralds. She was going to have to get over that—sooner, he hoped, than later. Ell—as well as all the current crop of Herald-Mages—was lucky to be alive. _If I hadn’t been in the right place at the right time to sense a child being attacked, that monster who called himself Leareth might still be draining and killing all the Talented children he could find, making it look like accidents._

_:Sorry...Tylendel:_ came the abashed response. _:I just wanted to let you know that Marya had another nightmare, but seems to have settled down again_. _:_

He smiled to himself. _I know I was that young once, but at this distance, it’s hard to remember._ He decided to take a look outside for a breath of fresh air and one more attempt to get a feel for what might be behind the storm. _Just a few minutes. Even if I get soaked, there’s a nice warm fire back in my room_. But the rain seemed to have stopped, at least for a few minutes, though the lightning and thunder continued unabated.

As he stood outside, breathing the ozone-laden night air, there came one last crash, and then _something_ happened. _What was that?_ He looked around, and saw a _hole_ in the air. _Or a window?_ he thought. The view was fuzzy at first, but rapidly cleared—and he nearly fainted.

“Vanyel?” 

He rushed forward, unbelievingly, but was stopped by an invisible—and implacable—barrier. 

“Yes, ’Lendel, it’s me. Been awhile, hasn’t it?” 

Heart racing, Tylendel opened his mouth—to say what?—but was forestalled by Vanyel. 

“Tylendel, _please_. I don’t have much time. The only reason I could do this was because it’s Sovvan-night and the stars were just right. I don’t know if they ever will be again, or if the Powers will even let me try again. So please let me have my say, then if we have more time, we can talk.

“That night...” Vanyel’s face twisted, and Tylendel’s heart sank, as he remembered what he’d contemplated doing. What he’d _intended_ to do. “I think I told you, once, that Aunt Savil tested me for Gifts. She said I had potential, but nothing that had manifested. But when you used me to make that gate, _something_ happened. I think it was Foresight, because I had a vision of these _things_ coming from nowhere, and attacking—and _eating_ —the Lesharas. And Gala was attacked, too. She died.”

Vanyel looked deep into Tylendel’s eyes, and Tylendel _knew_ , without words, that Vanyel knew that Tylendel had planned that attack, and would have carried it through, if things hadn’t gone awry. And he also knew that he was forgiven, because it _hadn’t_ happened.

“I couldn’t let that happen,” Vanyel continued. “I didn’t know what to do, and I was tied to the Gate. Actually, maybe that’s what let it happen. I _called_ , for help, from someone, anyone. And Someone came. I never saw who it was, I just felt it as a Presence. And a question. The question was: ‘Will you pay the price?’ And I said ‘Yes.’ Even though I didn’t know what would happen, I knew it was better than what was about to happen.”

Tylendel bowed his head, a lump in his throat preventing him from speaking.

“And then, well. I know what happened to me, but I never saw what happened on your side of things. But I went somewhere else. Another world. The Presence must have done something to us, because we had been lifebonded. And then, suddenly, we weren’t. It hurt, but not as much as it ought to have. Of course, what with my headache from the Gate, pretty much _everything_ hurt. But I’ve been wondering for the last ten years—what happened on your side after I disappeared?”

Tylendel swallowed, then managed to make his voice work. If he only had a few minutes, he was damned well going to make them count!

“You disappeared. I thought the Gate would collapse, but it didn’t. A bunch of Heralds and Companions came charging in through the Gate, and _then_ it shut down, just kind of fizzling out. And the Lesharas...I think your Presence must have put Truth Spell on some of them, because a bunch of them _confessed_ to all the things that we couldn’t prove. Evan and Wester and Fornay—the old lecher who wanted to marry my cousin—ended up banished. And then—I’m ashamed to say, a couple of my kin confessed to doings that I never knew about, and they were punished as well. And after that, Queen Elspeth stepped in. She ended up bringing in all the Frelennyes and Lesharas together in one big room and told us we weren’t going to leave until we came up with some way to live together, because we were doing a fine job of dying together!” Tylendel paused for breath.

“It turned out there was a cousin of mine and a Leshara cousin that were mad in love with each other and had been contemplating running off together because they knew their families would never let them marry. So a bunch of disputed land got settled on both of them, and we’ve mostly managed to live with each other. Knowing that the _truly_ guilty parties on either side had been punished helped considerably. And...I spent some time with the Mind-Healers, because I was so messed up, but after a while they kicked me out and told me to get back to work. I received my Whites not so long after.”

Tylendel drank in the sight of Vanyel. He looked...good. Ten years older, of course, but that just meant he had reached maturity, instead being of the wet-behind-the-ears student that he’d once worried he had been robbing the cradle of.

Then he asked the burning question _he_ wanted to know. “And what about you, Van? You just _disappeared._ The bond between us was gone, but it didn’t feel the way I felt when Staven died and that bond was snapped. That nearly killed me; this was an ache, as you said. I had Mages, Seers, everyone I could think of, looking for you, because I thought you had to be alive _somewhere._ ”

Vanyel smiled. “I was somewhere, but it wasn’t here. Not anywhere on this world. It’s a different place, a might-have-been from this world. Of course, they don’t think of it that way. It’s just the world, and the way it is and always has been, for them. For us, I should say, since that’s where I belong now. That was part of the price, too.”

Tylendel took a deep breath, then asked the important question. “Are you happy there? And...are you alone?”

“I _am_ happy. For a while, I thought I would never be, but gradually I got used to life there. Things are different. They don’t have Companions there, that’s one big thing that’s different. I mean, Companions are only found in Valdemar, but that’s where I’d lived my entire life until that day. They don’t have Companions, but they have Alphas.”

“Alphas?”

“Yes. Sometimes they look mostly human, and some of the time they look like wolves. Or _kyree_ , I suppose. But they’re not wolves, any more than a Companion is a horse. And they bond with humans, at least the right type of humans. Here, the humans that bond with Alphas are called Omegas. Alphas and Omegas mostly do the same sort of things that Companions and Heralds do.” Vanyel stopped abruptly. Was he blushing? Tylendel couldn’t tell.

“What does ‘mostly’ mean?” Yes, Vanyel was _definitely_ showing color in his face that hadn’t been there before.

“Well, the bond is different. More, um, personal. And physical as well as mental.” 

_Are you saying that Alphas and Omegas fuck each other?_ Tylendel managed not to say aloud, though he did choke slightly. Then he thought about it more rationally. _Alphas aren’t animals, and they’re in human-like shape at least part of the time. So I should keep my prejudices to myself._ “And have you met many Alphas and Omegas?”

“I have, but most importantly I met one particular Alpha. His name is Stefen, and I’d like you to meet _him_.” The window, or hole, or whatever that Tylendel was seeing Vanyel through widened a bit, and Tylendel saw a man—an Omega?–standing next to Vanyel. To Tylendel’s eye, Stefen looked entirely human, though his brow ridge was perhaps more pronounced then was seen in most humans. “We met about a year ago, and bonded not to long after. We’ve been together ever since.”

“I’m happy to meet you, Stefen,” Tylendel managed to say. He meant, it too.

“I’m glad to finally meet the man who meant so much to my bondmate,” said Stefen.

“And, um, there’s one other thing that’s different about Alphas and Omegas and their physiology,” Vanyel continued. “It’s the reason I wanted so badly to be able to reach you, even briefly. I think the window will close soon, and this is the most important thing.” He reached down with both hands and came up holding an armful of blankets with a tiny baby nestled in the center of them. “This is Stefen’s and my son. We haven’t named him yet, but I’d like to name him after you. Stefen suggested it, and if you give permission, we’ll have the naming ceremony soon.”

“You have my permission, of course—and my blessing, if that means anything,” said Tylendel, finding it hard to speak around the new lump in his throat.

“And bright blessings on you as well, from all three of us.”

The window closed.


End file.
